LArt3D

Sunday, December 29, 2013

For some time I have been researching for some good sculpting references on Human Anatomy. It's hard. They are not too many of variety out there. For sure one of the very known are Anatomy Tools at http://www.anatomytools.com/
A fantastic source of useful references for Human Anatomy.

Here is my latest a Christmas Gift of which I will do a little review here.
First one is the AnatomyTools Set - Artists Reference Busts - Male Torso Set Pictures:

They are from a very good material, incredible crafting and details. All are very well taken care of packaging and shipping, as you can see. Everything has been custom made with great care.

:)

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Here is My Male Figure - Male figure: General use v1A

1:3 life-size aprox - 58x25x12cm
Yellowish - antique color tone. Figure is of 2 parts - LEFT Side shows superficial and RIGHT Side is deeper muscles. Has a magnetic removable head & arms, internal 360° turntable, very easy for observation.

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Here is My Generic Skull: Natural plus Base

Small but so cool. About 2.6"H x 2.6"D x 1.8"WCast in bone life-like material, movable jaw. Skull is movable - magnetic neck Stand and base. Here are some picture, close ups and comparison to the 1/3 size big Male Figure.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

MARI is a powerful 1st generation program, that soon can be expanded and become a standard for texture painting. It was developed by WETA Digital (Used in James Cameron movie AVATAR) then was sold to The Foundry.

When you first OPEN MARI, it asks you to choose a chache directory. CACHE is EVERYTHING!
- choose a directory that is Local and has more than 500GB free space for storage. If you lose your CACHE - you lose everything!
There is no Save AS button in MARI - instead there is ARCHIVES, thats a way to create a version of your current work scene (so you can revert to later on, as a backup).
Right Click on your Project - chose Archive. OR in PROJECTS Tab - click Archive.

*For now MARI works only with .OBJ files.
-MARI only recognizes the base subdivision level of your model.
-Uvs cannot be over each other. UV tiling can be up to 10 on the right U and as many in the V layout.
-Mari is pretty flexible on (re)organizing your palletes. View -> Palletes-> choose whatever.

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PS - make 4K texture file.4096, put texture. save, import that specific tex into single
patch.
Select the patch by right clicking on it. Go to Import >> Named File (look at my patch
number ex. 1003, find that in the tab and load an individual image. once thats loaded,
make sure you select SELECTED ONLY.
with your patch selected - click CTRL + C and go to another patch and CTRL + V and it
will copy over the information.
You can easily copy and paste info over other (multiple) patches.
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In projection tab - edge mask - turn it on. Click Mask Preview Enabled. Rais eup the
value in Fallof End and/ or Fallof Start. So anything that is perpendicular to the
camera will NOT paint on those red areas.
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LAYERS with MASKED DIFFUSE
mamke new shader. Make new channel (base), make new channel (MASK) - color space SCALAR
, color BLACK. In the shader - ADD NEW SHADER MODULE > Masked Modules - Masked Diffuse.
in that base texture - change to BASE, Mask texture change to MASK.
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BAKING shaders:
right click on a shader - bake shader. Diffuse, bleed. size, color RGBA - bake all
visible patches.
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IMPORT/EXPORT TEXTURES:
right click on a channel - Export (for textures).
Import. You have TWO different TABS for importing images: Named Files and Sequence.
Named Files - chose your file to import (or multiple files) - you cah choose RESIZE 2
optopns - Patches or Images.
If you chose patches - it will resize the PATCH regarding on your IMAGE size (resolution).
If you chose IMAGES - it will resize the image regarding on your PATCH size!

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Applying Normal Map in Mari:
Make a new chanel and (right click) import the normal map texture. Make a new Shader
MODULE - NORMAL. Chose that chanel in shader modeule ( Normal Mapping - properties-
texture).
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You can import multiple objects in Mari. New project - choose your files (Shift click
to add multiple), choose - Uv, if available; Create From face Groups, Merge Geometries
into One. When you open your UV tab shelf you can see only 1 map per time. Right above
the tabs (forum, projects, uv, etc) there are 3 arrows.
1. Set Selection Mode to Object (you can click on an object to select the uvs.
2. Set selection mode to Patch (selecting patches)
3. set selection mode to face (super cool - selects the faces of the model).
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Painting with Images.
Open the Tab Image Manager - Import your textures here. You can double click on an image and you can apply filters on them, as it will make a new copy with appplied changes.
Drag and drop the image in the UVs window. To move the image around hold SHIFT, to rotate hold CTRL, to slace hold SHIFT + CTRL. Paint with Paint Through Brush. To bake hit B.
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When you import PSD files with layers Mari automatically creates NEW CHANNELS for those layers with their correspondent names.How would all those layer/channel information look like together. To put together all channels into one shader, you have to create A LAYERED SHADER (In Mari 1.4).If you have a psd file imported, once you create a LAYERED SHADER - mari will automatically combine all those channels. To make ONE channel out of all those - you need to BAKE that shader as a diffuse channel!
*TRICK - in PS your alpha masks - convert them to COLOR layer - white/black (when white is visible, black unvisible) and give each layer a name.
------------------------------------------Projecting and unprojecting layered PDS files in Mari 1.4http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?vid=13014&autoplay=1Camera - Layer Painting Projection. Path - find the image to reload. Image Editor - find the path to photoshop.exe in program files. Watch files - enable. Reset projection -
------------------------------------------Using object versions.right click mouse Objects Pallete - right click - add version It adds it in the object menu properties - geometry - version (pull down menu).Go to (Top menu) Objects - AMbient Occlusion to recalculate AO based on new version of object.
------------------------------------------View palletes - projection pallete: Mask Preview Enabled. (masking) Edge, Channel, Ambient, Depth, Backface, Fractal.RED Color of mask (masked out)Channel masking! - choose a chanel.

Friday, November 11, 2011

File - Import model (.obj)
To assign material - on viewport drag and drop material (from the materials slot on the Right hand Top side)
OR in scene choose the object - drag and drop
if you want to delete a MATERIAL - select it and with delete button

TIP* from Substance Pinter to Marmoset - you have to invert Y channel in normal map

PUT MAPS IN THE following order:
- Normal
- Gloss - (if you don't have that map you can lower the values)
- Spec - (if you don't have that map you can lower the values)
- Diffuse

TRANSPARECY slot - DOESN'T work - so the alpha must be in the channel of Diffuse (albedo)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Marmoset Toolbag 1:
(Get the Toolbag here: Marmoset Toolbag - notice that for personal use this thing cost like - one time fee of about $50 USD, but keep in mind that its per 1 machine only. If you change your system configuration, like changing your hard drive - ta-dah.. license is gone, but the good part is - you can write them to give you a new code ;) ).

Open Marmoset Toolbag (MT).
Its very confusing in the beginning, so here what you should do:
File - Open mesh - imports the mesh to preview.
* Tip when you export your .OBJ mesh, in Maya click export settings and check the Groups ON, this way when its imported in MT under MAT menu you will see a right hand side menu - Chunks/Materials, so you can assign different materials on those separate chunks.
* You can import a separate mesh after, so all the meshes have to be combined (in your 3d program) into ONE. THOUGH - you can open a separate Reference mesh!
>>>>>
on VIE tab
- Open Ref Mesh... Also you assign different material on it. Possible to hide/unhide it.
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File -if you click Auto Reload Option, everytime you change the texture, or save on the mesh (in external program) it automatically updates it in MT.

MAT MENU:
To be able to assign material to your mesh - Right hand Menu somewhere down there is a button - NEW Mat - click it, give it a name and save in your hard drive - on directory that is convenient, or same as your project. The name of that new material is shown Under Material tab. Click it. On the left hand side Diffuse - your color map, Normal/Height - your normal map, so on.
Then select a chunk, click that material and hit Apply Selected material.
if you work on the material like adding specularity, Use Alpha Testing (for alphas) so on.. make sure click Save Mat - on the right hand menu.
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Large Animal Games, founded 2001 115 W. 29th St.
New York, NY 10001http://www.largeanimal.com
Games Publisher, Game Development, Online-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Is Pop
425 West 13th St.
New York, NY 10014
646-230-1430.http://thisispop.com
Online Developer
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About Me

I am a 3D Artist in the New York Area for about 7 yrs, concentrating in the Gaming Industry as a Character Artist and Modeler. Before that I have worked for about 10 years in the 2D industry with Photoshop being a Retoucher for various fashion magazines, catalogues and music albums.
Check my Portfolio website to see my ART.